Watchword

It has become a watchword in our society. A secure future, a secure homeland, a secure retirement, a secure investment....the list goes on and on. Security as a safety net where we never need suffer the indignities that we see ourselves as above.

But the truth of the matter is that there is no safety in the world, never has been, never will be. We can pull away from the "nasty, brutish, and short" but it is always back there lurking in the background. Folks seem to forget that.

I guess that I am finally disillusioned by the feelings of my fellow Americans. It would appear that the need to keep the things "secure" has blinded them to all around them. But the blindness has led them into a trap where all is going to be taken from them soon. We are too wedded to the idea of kumbaya and holding hands and self affirmation to notice that the world is a dirty dangerous place. My sons will probably have to defend what we have, not go out and try to take from others as is the current custom.

We have become the lotus-eaters of legend. We are absorbed in the material things that populate our twisted view of happiness, unaware of the violence being done in our names to secure the supply lines. But in our lack of desire for anything other than safety and the sanctity of our "stuff" we have become less than what we one were. We spend the lives of our soldiers and brothers for the good of the hidden oligarchy who is siphoning off our future dreams. All we want in return is a gilded set of blinders that keep us from seeing the costs of our excess.

Roman mothers would once tell their sons to come back with their shields or on them. This tradition vanished. So did Rome.